Kudlow: White House ‘taking a look’ at Google regulations
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Tuesday that the administration is “taking a look” at imposing regulations on Google following President Donald Trump’s tweet Tuesday accusing the search giant of favoring news outlets critical of him in search results.
Trump tweeted early Tuesday morning that Google’s search results show only reporting from what he labeled the “fake news media.”
“They have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out.”
Kudlow was asked Tuesday during a brief exchange with reporters whether the Trump administration feels that “there needs to be some form of regulation for Google.”
“We’ll let you know. We’re taking a look at it,” Kudlow replied as he walked back into the White House after a TV interview with Fox News.
Kudlow’s remark followed a vague pledge from Trump to take steps against Google to rectify what he said is unfair treatment of conservatives by the company. In his Twitter flurry Tuesday morning, Trump accused Google of “suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.”
“They are controlling what we can & cannot see,” Trump tweeted. “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”
Neither Trump nor Kudlow elaborated on what actions the White House might take.
Tuesday’s outburst marked the latest instance of the rocky relationship between Trump and the media, which he often refers to as “fake news” when outlets publish reporting he does not like. Trump has similarly accused social media companies of censoring conservative voices.
Trump offered no evidence Tuesday to back up his claim that Google is favoring news that is critical of him and his administration. Many news outlets tailor their online content to Google’s algorithms in an effort to secure placement at or near the top of search results.
A Google spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that the company’s search engine is “not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”
“When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds,” the spokesperson continued. “Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users’ queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”